


a steady ship and captain to steer her by

by mollivanders



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Boats and Ships, Caretaking, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-19 23:51:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10650687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/pseuds/mollivanders
Summary: “Why am I here?” she asks him the next morning, the storm having passed them by. She still feels faintly green and carefully sips at the tea he’d made for them all. They’re sitting on the forward bench, watching a herd of sea cows cross the bow.“You’re here because the pilot is a woman,” Cassian reminds her, going over the mission brief details once more, “and it is Alliance policy for a woman to be present when a woman defects. Bodhi is here because he knows the pilot. I’m here to handle the first contact and debrief her.”She nods wearily, sipping at her tea. “Okay,” she says, stretching her legs out so her boots tap at a coiled line. “Those are good reasons.”Cassian pulls at his lip with his teeth, looking over at her. “If it helps,” he says, “Draven says to give it one more week.”One week. She can manage anything for a week.





	a steady ship and captain to steer her by

**Author's Note:**

> Belatedly written for RebelCaptainWeek Day Two - Comfort. Also, more specifically, I saw this unverified post on Tumblr about Diego Luna, Felicity Jones, and Alan Tudyk living on a boat together while filming the Scarif scenes and immediately wanted to put that in-universe. Then this little bit of boat fluff happened.

For a while, the Alliance sends them out on mission after mission, rough and tumble days that bleed into routine. After a particularly grueling mission that has Jyn peeling herself out of her cot to attend the next briefing, Draven has a surprise for them.

“We need you stationed on Chad,” he says to her, Cassian and Bodhi. “A pilot from Lieutenant Rook’s former squadron wants to defect. There are no established safe houses in that sector but a friend of the Rebellion has offered us her facilities on Chad. We don’t know if she’s clean, or exactly when she’s coming, so you might be there a while. You’ll report in once a week.”

Jyn is sure she’s staring at Draven in open surprise but Cassian responds with short, professional questions while she steals a look at Bodhi in relief. At least they won’t be alone.

( _You could have been alone_ , she thinks, unbidden, and her stomach flips in nervous betrayal.)

Draven smiles, an unsettling sight if she’s ever seen one. “I thought it would be a good change of pace,” he says, “to keep you fresh.”

+

When they get to Chad, the news gets worse.

“We’re going to be on a _boat_?” she asks, incredulous, as Bodhi carefully moors the U-wing to the boat. It floats gently in the waves and Bodhi looks at her in confusion.

“What’s wrong with a boat?” he asks. “It’s not even that small.”

“Didn’t you read General Draven’s brief?” Cassian asks, passing her with a pack slung over his shoulder. “The whole planet is water. Where else would we be?” She stammers with exasperation. “Of course I did,” she insists. “I just thought – oh, never mind,” she says, cutting herself off.

She’d thought _boat_ was just how Chadians referred to their spaceships. It was an honest mistake, but not one she’s interested in admitting.

“You might like it,” Bodhi says, passing her a box of supplies to carry over. “You’re fine on ships,” he adds, and exits along with her.

The boat really isn’t that small, but it’s not that big either. Not for three people living together for an unknown period of time, with a fourth on the way. Almost fifteen meters, she guesses, with a canopy stretching over the middle of the deck. Not far off, she spots a herd of sea beasts moving in slow formation, their soft lowing reaching across the waves.

“Do you know how to swim?” Cassian asks, lending a hand to pull her up the boat’s ramp. She stumbles, catching herself on the railing as the boat rocks back and forth, and a hint of concern flits across Cassian’s expression.

“No,” she answers reluctantly and grips the railing unsteadily.

It was going to be a long mission.

+

An hour into being on a boat, stumbling around and trying to catch her balance, Jyn realizes something else she hates about boats.

They make her ill.

All the former humor is gone from Cassian’s eyes when he finds her leaning over the side of the boat, wiping her mouth and breathing through her nose.

“I brought you these,” he says, showing her two silicone bracelets. “Found them in the supply room.” He slides one over her wrist, then the other. Absentmindedly, he brushes the hair back from her face before freezing, catching himself in the act. “Ah, they’re supposed to help with the nausea.”

“Okay,” she mutters, grabbing at the railing before he gently wraps an arm around her waist, leading her to a bench at the front of the canopied deck. “Bodhi said it might be worse when the boat is anchored, but the bracelets should help.”

They sit and he points out to the waves. “He also said it would help to watch the waves. Get fresh air and stay off your feet.”

She tilts her face upwards, the soft spray of the ocean refreshing on her skin.

“Why aren’t you ill?” she asks, letting her eyes fall shut. “Or Bodhi. He grew up on a desert planet.” Beside her, she feels Cassian shrug.

“Bodhi has spent a lot of time on ships,” he says, “more than any of us. Guess it translates for him.”

“And you?” she asks again, leaning her head against his shoulder. He tenses for a second before relaxing, and she opens her eyes to find him taking her in.

“Fest had oceans,” he says. “Freezing cold oceans where my uncle would go fishing. He used to take me.”

It’s more than he’s ever said before about his homeworld.

+

A week into living on a boat and Jyn thinks she’s managing. She’s learned how to walk on the deck without losing her balance, and Cassian’s trusty bracelets never come off. Bodhi moves their position every few nights, and she learns the boat’s systems by watching him. She studies the data entry for this planet, learning about the sea cows and cy’een and the more dangerous wystoh.

Still, she is completely unprepared for the storm that hits in the middle of the night.

Bodhi orders them to stay below decks as he rushes up to check the boat’s computers and Jyn can’t even think of disobeying him. She clings to the side of her bunk, curses and prayers falling from her lips in equal measure as she tries to keep her head about her, when Cassian slides down from the bunk above her.

“Hey,” he says, his voice a soothing bolt in the darkness, “hey, it’s okay.” He rolls in behind her in the bunk, holding her tight and running his hand across her arm as she curls against him.

“I hate this place,” she says, bringing her knees even closer to her chest as he murmurs reassurances against her ear. A heavy wave slams into the boat and her eyes roll back as they fall further back into the bunk.

“I know,” he murmurs, rubbing at her temple, his other arm secure around her waist. “I know.”

(They stay like that until morning.)

+

“Why am I here?” she asks him the next morning, the storm having passed them by. She still feels faintly green and carefully sips at the tea he’d made for them all. They’re sitting on the forward bench, watching a herd of sea cows cross the bow.

“You’re here because the pilot is a woman,” Cassian reminds her, going over the mission brief details once more, “and it is Alliance policy for a woman to be present when a woman defects. Bodhi is here because he knows the pilot. I’m here to handle the first contact and debrief her.”

She nods wearily, sipping at her tea. “Okay,” she says, stretching her legs out so her boots tap at a coiled line. “Those are good reasons.”  
  
Cassian pulls at his lip with his teeth, looking over at her. “If it helps,” he says, “Draven says to give it one more week.”

One week. She can manage anything for a week.

+

She can’t bloody well sleep. She tosses in her bunk, and then, to avoid waking Cassian and Bodhi, steals above deck. The boat’s rocking isn’t so bad anymore and she stretches out on the bench, looking up at the stars.

Somewhere up there, her friends were fighting and dying; people she hadn’t even considered friends until recently. Somewhere out there was an Imperial pilot defecting her way across the stars. Somewhere, where she couldn’t pick out, was Lah’mu, the last home she remembers before the Rebellion.

(Before Cassian.)

Over the gentle hum of the boat’s engines, she catches the soft pad of boots crossing the deck and bolts upright to the sight of Cassian crossing from the main cabin.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asks, sitting next to her and stretching out to his full length, his arms reaching far behind her.

“Thought you were,” she replies, taking him in, and he shakes his head. “Report to Draven,” he says, looking out into the darkness.

“Still stuck here?” she asks and he nods, not looking at her. She looks out at the same point he’s studying and catches the sight of silver fins dipping below the waves.

“I know it’s not what you’re used to,” he says quietly and she looks back at him. “Sometimes this is what the work is.”

Day in and day out, boring, drudgery. She knows it well, for all her running.

(She’d known it from Saw.)

“I know,” she says, and catches a bare shiver around his shoulders. “Come on,” she says, standing and offering him her hand. “Let’s go back down.”

“You’re better?” he asks, surprise etching his features, and she shrugs. “I’ll manage.”

He takes her hand as they head back.

+

In spite of Draven’s suggestion that the mission will last _maybe one week more_ , their time on the boat stretches out before and behind them. Cassian teaches her to fish and tentatively she puts her feet in the water, memories of Lah’mu springing to the surface. She helps Bodhi navigate the boat and barters with other sailors who respect her more now that she can stay vertical. It almost becomes idyllic, familiar.

(She doesn’t have the words.)

But at long last, they get a subspace transmission, reaching out to them from a lone Imperial pilot. She ejects overhead, her ship set on a collision course far away, and Jyn wonders what it must be like to trust like that. The pilot floats down, her parachute catching at the wind, and Bodhi throws her a line to pull her onto the boat. When she pulls herself onboard and pulls her helmet off, Jyn is the first one to offer her a hand up.

“Welcome to the Rebellion,” she says wryly. “And let me know if you hate boats as much as I do.”

She catches Cassian’s smirk from the corner of her eye. It doesn’t matter.

They’re going _home_.

_Finis_

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [ladytharen](http://ladytharen.tumblr.com/tagged/rebelcaptainweek) on Tumblr if you want to say hi :)


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